Eighteen Forever
by Thalia Kendall
Summary: Madame Rosmerta- cheerful, pretty proprietor of the Three Broomsticks. On how love and carefree youth doesn't last. No one stays eighteen forever. SiriusRosmerta one-shot.


A/N: This was written for a friend, the lovely Kirixchi, goddess of Lucius/Narcissa and many other things. It is an odd ship, but if I might say so myself, this is better than Sirius/Marauder-Sue, so¡­ hope you like it!

Disclaimer: No, I do not own, have never, will never.

~*~

She almost couldn't bear to look at the pictures pinned on the door of her establishment.   
  
Sirius Black, the murderer of a dozen people, bearded and pale-faced, fiery obsidian eyes gleaming over too-sharp cheekbones, escaped from Azkaban, a dangerous man, pursued by even more dangerous monsters.  
  
Rosmerta had a smile on her face, every day, all day. Even now, as the last patrons of the Three Broomsticks waved merrily before making their way out of the pub (before those Dementors pursuing that deadly murderer could get into their paths), she was smiling, determinedly bright like the fading sunlight, as she wiped the countertop with a sodden rag.   
  
"Good night, Rosmerta," the slightly oily voice of Cornelius Fudge reached her ears as the Minister made his way out of the Three Broomsticks. "Make sure you lock all doors... wouldn't want Sirius Black to get you." Chortling at his own self-perceived humour, the Minister departed, shutting the door behind him, and Rosmerta 's eyes met the picture of Sirius staring back at her on the closed door.  
  
She wondered what Fudge would think if she had burst out with something along the lines of a defiant "he's already GOT me".   
  
The Sirius she had known was not the one staring at her with that odd, unnerving intensity (she wondered nervously for a moment if photos could recognize people). Sirius Black had been a young man of eighteen then, herself about the same age, all wit and cheerful arrogance and a devilish glint in his dark eyes. Rosmerta smiled slightly to herself, her pretty head bent over a bag of empty bottles.  
  
They'd both been the bright, dazzling sort of people of the spotlight. Back in the day.  
  
Perhaps that was why she loves him still.   
  
Perhaps it was easier, she reflected as she started to levitate the empty bottles towards the back door and dustbins outside, to feel the real depth of love after the loved one was gone. Absence making the heart grow fonder didn't quite cut it, though.  
  
"No, absence just makes you feel pain in love that you never thought you could feel," she whispered aloud as the bottles landed with a strangely quiet series of muffled clinks. Then silence, and Rosmerta was about to turn back inside, to the warm and cozy emptiness that was her pub.  
  
But there was a rustle of movement and a dark shape, stooped by the dustbins, caught her eye. Cocking her head to the side, Rosmerta took a closer look.  
  
A black dog, rather big, with the leanness and matted fur that came from neglect (a stray without a home, rebellious), rooting through the dustbins with snout and paws. Almost as if realizing that it was being watched, it looked up, and Rosmerta frowned in slight confusion.  
  
Strays were mean, hungry, unfriendly dogs, vicious and ruthless as criminals, and their tails were held between their legs even as their manic eyes gleamed in rage at the world, ears back, teeth clenched.  
  
A stray didn't have almost-human dark eyes or abandon the heap of trash and perhaps-food that was its domain to approach her slowly, an oddly warm look on its face.   
  
It was perhaps an instant, or perhaps more, but Rosmerta silently opened the door wider and waited until the dog had stepped inside before shutting it behind the both of them.  
  
~*~  
  
It was a simple matter, really. A few cleaning charms, and then a spoken word for it to follow her up the stairs in the back.   
  
"I guess this will be my charitable act of the season," she mused aloud, giving the dog a slight smile as she put a pot on a stove, "I hope you don't mind stew."  
  
The dog nodded its head, and Rosmerta smiled at it, putting salt and pepper into the pot. "Do you have an owner?"  
  
No response. "I'll take that as a 'no'," Rosmerta declared. "Alone for Christmas... well, that makes two of us."   
  
The dog whined a little, eyes wide as it stared at her. Fresh vegetables, bright greens and reds and oranges, cut into small pieces. Slice, dice, julienne... drop into the metal pot, heat, burn... "Things weren't always like this," Rosmerta told the dog, "We used to be the bright ones... oh, those were the days..."  
  
The dog tilted its head, and she poured a glass of wine (red like blood) into the pot. "We didn't care about the future: what was there to worry about? Whatever happened, we could make it out. Ride away from it all... he had a flying motorcycle. It was so... glamorous and yet rebellious."  
  
"Woof?"  
  
"They said he killed thirteen people," the water began to boil, curls of steam like ghosts rising upward. "Why would he do such a thing, though? And... Peter. They were _friends_."  
  
More steam rose from the pot now, and maybe that was why the scene in front of her was blurry.  
  
She abruptly extinguished the heat of the stove, and turned around to find bowls from the worn cupboard. "But enough of that, I suppose," she said softly. "No one stays eighteen forever, and being young and in love doesn't equal immortality. I don't know if I regret not knowing that at the time."  
  
She gave the stew one last stir and filled two bowls. "Dinner's served," she said wryly, walking towards the table.  
  
She could have sworn the dog grinned at her.  
  
~*~  
  
For a stray, it was astonishingly neat in its eating habits. And then, it wagged its tail and watched her with bright eyes as she put the dishes away.  
  
"Are you sure you don't have an owner?" she asked, reaching out a hand and patting its head. "You're smarter than most strays."  
  
The dog snorted as if to say "As if anyone could own ME", and Rosmerta laughed a little.   
  
The one-sided conversation, not quite of ships and shoes and sealing wax, or cabbages and kings, continued in snippets in the den.   
  
"Well... I just hope that sometime, I'll find out the whole story," Rosmerta mused, looking at the dog. "Think that will happen?"  
  
The dog nodded its head, and Rosmerta grinned before closing her eyes.  
  
The last thing she was aware of was the dog pulling a blanket around her with its teeth. Really, it was almost too smart for an animal...  
  
~*~  
  
About two hours after midnight, the dog raised its head, and had any lights been on in the flat, someone might have been able to see a shadow shifting in shape, taller, larger, head raising as the dark eyes glinted with a more complex, conscious light.  
  
"You'll hear it someday," a low male voice, hoarse from disuse, whispered in the darkness, as a calloused hand (the hand of a murderer?) moved a lock of fair hair with a whispery gentleness from the woman's face. She didn't wake.  
  
Two minutes later, and he was walking out the door, footsteps quiet and face solemn. There was a taste of lipstick in his mouth, slightly sweet and slightly bitter. The door shut behind him, and a moment later, the moonlight shone upon a black dog upon the doorstep.  
  
Waxing gibbous. The dog lowered his head, perhaps in guilt or sorrow, and glanced at the Shrieking Shack silhouetted in the distance for a few long moments before padding off into the surrounding darkness.  
  
In the upper level flat in the Three Broomsticks, a beautiful woman no longer quite so young or dazzlingly bright slept on, a glittering yellow rose resting in her lap like a fallen star from the past.


End file.
